Tens of thousands of people march in downtown Minneapolis in subzero temperatures to protest the massive presence of ICE agents over the past several weeks Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Tens of thousands of Minnesotans marched in downtown Minneapolis Friday in a negative 30 degree windchill to protest the federal government’s continuing surge of immigration enforcement — demanding civil rights and a withdrawal of the 3,000 officers sent here by the administration of President Donald Trump.

The demonstration took place on “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth & Freedom,” a general strike supported by Minnesota unions, progressive faith leaders and community activists. Proponents encouraged all Minnesotans to stay home from work, school and refrain from shopping — disruptions of normal orders of business to protest the presence of federal immigration agents in Minnesota.

The massive protest began at The Commons Park at 2 p.m. in Minneapolis. The march ended with a rally at Target Center. 

Natasha Dockter, the first vice president of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators’ teachers chapter, handed out hand warmers to demonstrators at The Commons alongside other teachers.

“I’m out here today because what’s going on in our city is completely and totally unacceptable. It’s impacting the lives of our students and their families that we serve,” Dockter said.

Sergey Goro and Ben Daniel were visiting the Twin Cities from San Francisco and Seattle for the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships, which was delayed due to the extreme cold. 

Goro said that he’d been to No Kings protests — demonstrations against the Trump administration’s authoritarian policies — in San Francisco, but that they weren’t as large as the Minneapolis protest. 

Daniel agreed: “We can really feel that everyone’s on board here — that this is ridiculous and it’s gotta stop.” 

Daniela Morales, 16, carrying a Mexican flag, said her parents are both Mexican immigrants and that she attended the protest on behalf of people who can’t speak out. 

“I’m really glad to see everybody come out and support each other and our neighbors and fight against the administration,” Morales said. 

Other protests led to arrests

A morning protest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport led to the arrests of roughly 100 clergy by MSP and Bloomington law enforcement Friday, according to a statement from protest organizers.

Demonstrators at the airport were standing or kneeling on the roadway outside Terminal 1’s departures area and led away by law enforcement.

Jeff Lea, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, said in an email that the airport “worked in advance with event organizers to best accommodate their right to freedom of expression while also ensuring uninterrupted operations.”

“When the permitted activity went beyond the agreed-upon terms, MSP Airport Police began taking necessary action, including arrests, to protect public safety, airport security and access to Terminal 1,” Lea wrote. Lea confirmed there were around 100 arrests.

At least one demonstrator was also arrested at the nearby Whipple Federal Building, where federal agents deployed chemical irritants into a crowd of protestors, the Star Tribune reported. Around noon, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office announced that it had given three dispersal orders for protestors to unblock an access road at the building. The Whipple Building, now a base for federal immigration operations, has been an ongoing site of protests.

Life stood still Friday for many Minnesotans. Over 700 businesses closed Friday to support the “ICE Out” day, according to Bring Me The News, which is keeping a running list.

“It is time to suspend the normal order of business to demand immediate cessation of ICE actions in MN, accountability for federal agents who have caused loss of life and abuse to Minnesota residents and call for Congress to immediately intervene,” the demonstration’s website states.

Over a dozen churches across Minnesota announced prayer vigils to “mourn, pray and plant seeds of hope with one another,” according to ISAIAH, the nonprofit coalition of Minnesota faith and community groups.

Dozens of school districts across the state closed Friday because of the dangerously cold temperatures. Minneapolis Public Schools were already planned to be closed Friday for a teacher record-keeping day.

Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks during the annual March for Life rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23, 2026. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to expand a policy that blocks foreign aid dollars from going to organizations that discuss, refer or perform abortions to also include groups that address transgender health care or have policies on diversity, equity and inclusion, Vice President JD Vance said Friday.

“We’re expanding this policy to protect life, to combat DEI and the radical gender ideologies that prey on our children. And with these additions, the rule will now cover every non-military foreign assistance that America sends,” Vance announced at the March for Life anti-abortion rally on the National Mall.  

“All in all, we have expanded the Mexico City Policy about three times as big as it was before,” he added. “And we’re proud of it, because we believe in fighting for life.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request from States Newsroom for more details on the policy expansion or when it would be implemented. 

Defending administration’s record

Vance said during the rally he needed to “address an elephant in the room” that President Donald Trump and others in the administration have not made enough progress on anti-abortion initiatives during the first year of unified Republican control of the federal government.  

“I want you to know that I hear you and that I understand,” he said. “There will inevitably be debates within this movement. We love each other. But we’re going to have open conversations about how best to use our political system to advance life, how prudential we must be in the cause of advancing human life. I think these are good, natural and honest debates.”

Vance mentioned that Trump nominated some of the Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly 50 years. 

He also noted that Republicans in Congress included a provision in the “big, beautiful” law that blocks Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood for one year for any type of health care. Federal law had already barred funding from going to abortions, with limited exceptions.

Vance argued that in addition to judicial rulings and federal laws, members of the anti-abortion movement must strive to change hearts and minds as well. 

“We’re not trying to argue to the Supreme Court anymore,” he said. “We’re trying to argue to our fellow citizens that we must build up that culture of life. And as you know, that effort is going to take a lot of time, it’s going to take a lot of energy and it’s going to take a little bit of money.”

Later in his speech, Vance sought to discourage people from concentrating on professional lives and instead called on them to focus more on getting married and having children. 

“You’re never going to find great meaning in a cubicle or in front of a computer screen,” he said. “But you will find great meaning if you dedicate yourself to the creation and sustenance of human life.”

Trump didn’t attend the rally in person but recorded a video message that was played just before Vance spoke, telling attendees he “was proud to be the first president in history to attend this march in person” six years ago. 

“In my first term I was honored to appoint judges and justices who believed in interpreting the Constitution as written. That was a big deal. And because of that, the pro-life movement won the greatest victory in its history,” Trump said. “Now the work to rebuild a culture that supports life continues in every state, every community and every part of our beautiful land.”

Calls for action on medication abortion

Trump and some in his administration have come under scrutiny lately for not moving faster to complete a safety review of mifepristone, one of two pharmaceuticals used in medication abortion, which is approved for up to 10 weeks gestation. 

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and Lila Rose, founder of the anti-abortion group Live Action, both released statements in December calling on Trump to fire Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary over the pace of that review.

Anti-abortion organizations want the administration to end the ability of doctors or other qualified health care providers to prescribe mifepristone and the second pharmaceutical used in medication abortion, misoprostol, via telehealth and have it shipped to patients. 

Several Republicans in Congress have joined their call, with Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., holding a hearing on mifepristone earlier this month. 

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected efforts from anti-abortion organizations to limit access to mifepristone in a June 2024 ruling, writing they never had standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place. 

Trump told House Republicans during a policy retreat at the Kennedy Center earlier this month they must be “flexible” about the Hyde Amendment, which blocks federal funding for abortion with limited exceptions, in order to broker a health care deal that can reach his desk. 

Dannenfelser rebuked Trump for the comment, writing in a statement that to “suggest Republicans should be ‘flexible’ is an abandonment of this decades-long commitment. If Republicans abandon Hyde, they are sure to lose this November.”

GOP leaders tout major law

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also spoke at the March for Life rally, touting the “big, beautiful” law as “the most pro-life and pro-family legislation that has been signed into law in decades.”

“For the first time since Roe v. Wade was reversed, we have the White House, the Senate and the House all working together to deliver meaningful and historic pro-life victories,” he said. 

The law included several policies that Johnson said will aid Americans in having children, including an expansion of the child tax credit and the adoption tax credit as well as the investment accounts for babies. 

Johnson said the provision that blocks Medicaid patients from going to Planned Parenthood for non-abortion health care services, depriving the organization of that income, was a massive policy victory for Republicans. 

“We stand here today with one united voice to affirm the federal government should not be subsidizing any industry that profits from the elimination of human life,” Johnson said. 

New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith, speaking just after Johnson while other GOP lawmakers stood on the stage, said eliminating access to mifepristone must be accomplished. 

“I’ve been here since Ronald Reagan’s first election, 1981,” Smith said. “And I can tell you, this leadership is the most pro-life, so committed. And behind me are just absolute heroes. Men and women who take up the fight every single day.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., didn’t attend the rally in person but submitted a video that touted the Planned Parenthood defunding provision. 

“Thanks to that landmark legislation, this year, some of the nation’s largest abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, are prohibited from receiving Medicaid funding,” Thune said. 

Other Republicans attending the rally included Alabama Rep. Robert Aderholt, Arkansas Rep. French Hill, Florida Rep. Kat Cammack, Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde, Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, Michigan Reps. Bill Huizenga and Tim Walberg, Minnesota Rep. Michelle Fischbach, Missouri Rep. Bob Onder, Pennsylvania Rep. Dan Meuser, South Carolina Rep. William Timmons, Texas Reps. Michael Cloud and Dan Crenshaw, Utah Rep. Mike Kennedy, Virginia Rep. John McGuire and Wisconsin Rep. Glenn Grothman.

Federal agents spray demonstrators at close range with irritants after the killing of Renee Good by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7, 2026, in Minneapolis. Since July 2025, there have been at least 17 open-fire incidents involving federal immigration agents, according to data compiled by The Trace, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet investigating gun violence. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

As a growing number of encounters between civilians and Department of Homeland Security agents — including the widely scrutinized fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis — are scrutinized in court records and on social media, federal officials are returning to a familiar response: self-defense.

In more than a handful of recent encounters, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, has said its agents acted in self-defense during violent encounters, even as eyewitness testimony and video footage raised questions about whether those accounts fully matched what happened.

And in a ruling for a recent civil lawsuit, a U.S. district judge said federal immigration officials were not forthcoming about enforcement efforts, citing discrepancies between official DHS statements and video evidence.

“We’re now in a situation in which official sources in the Trump administration are really tying themselves quite strongly to a particular narrative, regardless of what the widely disseminated videos suggest,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University.

The cases come amid an aggressive expansion of federal immigration enforcement and increasing scenes of violent and intimidating arrest tactics. President Donald Trump’s administration has sharply increased the hiring of immigration agents, broadened enforcement operations and accelerated deportations, as protests have spread across major cities.

The use of force, paired with conflicting official statements and evidence, has raised questions about whether federal immigration officials can be held accountable and highlighted the steep hurdles victims of excessive force might face in seeking legal recourse.

The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to multiple requests from Stateline for comment on discrepancies between official accounts and publicly available evidence.

Since last July, there have been at least 17 open-fire incidents involving federal immigration agents — including fatal shootings, shootings with injuries and cases in which shots were fired — according to data compiled by The Trace, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet investigating gun violence. A recent Wall Street Journal investigation also found 13 incidents since July in which immigration agents fired at or into civilian vehicles.

One of the most prominent examples unfolded in Minneapolis this month: Good’s fatal shooting by a masked ICE agent. The Department of Homeland Security initially said the agent, Jonathan Ross, fired in self-defense after Good, 37, allegedly tried to run over officers. Videos taken by bystanders show Good’s vehicle reversed, shifted and began to turn away from officers after one yelled and pulled on her car handle. Ross positioned himself near the hood of her car, and he began firing.

Minnesota officials later stated the footage did not support DHS’ description of an imminent threat, prompting renewed scrutiny of how the Trump administration is characterizing use-of-force encounters.

Similar discrepancies have surfaced in other cases. The Department of Homeland Security recently revised its account of a December shooting in Glen Burnie, Maryland, after local police contradicted its initial version. DHS first claimed both men injured in the incident were inside a van that ICE officers fired at in self-defense, but later said that one of the injured men had already been arrested and was in custody inside an ICE vehicle when he was hurt. The other man was shot twice and is facing two federal criminal charges.

In August, federal immigration agents fired at a family’s vehicle three times in San Bernardino, California. DHS maintained the shooting was justified after at least two agents were struck by the vehicle, but available footage shows an agent breaking the driver-side window moments before gunfire erupted. Surveillance footage from the street does not show agents being struck by the vehicle.

“I can’t think of another time in my lifetime — I’m 50 years old — where we’ve seen this sort of force in the streets in the United States,” said Mark Fleming, the associate director of federal litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center. Fleming has been an immigration and civil rights attorney for the past 20 years.

García Hernández, the law professor at Ohio State University, echoed Fleming’s point, saying that what also stands out is how often agents are deploying less‑lethal weapons in ways that would generally be prohibited — including firing rubber pellets and similar projectiles at people’s faces or heads.

In its use-of-force policy, DHS agents may use force only when no “reasonably effective, safe, and feasible” alternative exists and only at a level that is “objectively reasonable.” DHS policy emphasizes “respect for human life” and directs officers to be proficient in de-escalation tactics — using communication or other techniques to stabilize or reduce the intensity of a potentially violent situation without, or with reduced, physical force. The policy also states that deadly force should not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect.

ICE, as an agency under DHS, is bound by this guidance, but the policy on shooting at moving vehicles differs from what many law enforcement agencies nationwide now consider best practices. While DHS prohibits officers from firing at the operator of a moving vehicle unless it is necessary to stop a serious threat, its rules do not explicitly instruct officers to get out of the way of moving vehicles when possible.

Use of force

A growing pattern of aggressive tactics and conflicting evidence has raised serious questions about how federal immigration agents use lethal and less-lethal force, and how DHS officials describe the incidents to the public.

In September, 38-year-old Silverio Villegas González was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Franklin Park, a suburb near Chicago. DHS claimed that one agent was “seriously injured” after being dragged by González’s car as he tried to flee. But body-camera footage shows the agent telling a Franklin Park police officer that his injury was “nothing major.”

In a statement, DHS said the agent responded with lethal force because he was “fearing for his own life” — a narrative very similar to the department’s description of the fatal shooting of Good in Minneapolis.

In recent months, DHS officials have claimed that immigration agents have been repeatedly attacked with vehicles.

“We’ve seen vehicles weaponized over 100 times in the last several months against our law enforcement officers,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said during an interview with CNN this month.

In court filings related to a civil lawsuit about Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, the department provided body-camera footage and other internal records to bolster their claims of self-defense.

But U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis found the evidence “difficult, if not impossible to believe.” In her lengthy opinion issued in late November, Ellis acknowledged that agents sometimes encountered aggressive drivers but also found that agents treated cars that were merely following them as potential threats.

In October, an ICE agent shot a community observer, Marimar Martinez, five times during a confrontation in Chicago. DHS claimed that she rammed the ICE vehicle with her car and boxed it in, but surveillance footage does not show the agents were trapped.

Martinez survived, but the Trump administration quickly labeled her a “domestic terrorist” — the same label used to describe Good. Martinez’s criminal charges were dropped in November after the federal Department of Justice abruptly moved to dismiss the case.

In Ellis’ ruling on the civil lawsuit, she wrote that federal officials “cannot simply create their own narrative of what happened, misrepresenting the evidence to justify their actions,” and that the violence used by federal agents “shocks the conscience,” a legal standard meaning a situation that seems grossly unjust to an observer.

Ellis also explicitly questioned the conduct and leadership of Greg Bovino of U.S. Border Patrol during the Chicago immigration operation. Bovino, who has led the administration’s big-city campaign, was deposed under oath, and in her November ruling, Ellis described him as “not credible,” writing that he “appeared evasive over the three days of his deposition, either providing ‘cute’ responses … or outright lying.”

In a footnote, Ellis also noted an instance in which an agent asked ChatGPT to draft a use-of-force report from a single sentence and a few images — further undermining the credibility of official DHS accounts.

A narrow path to accountability

Holding federal immigration agents accountable for misconduct is difficult, even as video evidence and police or court records increasingly contradict official government accounts.

With more evidence surfacing and legal claims already underway, some experts say it’s likely that even more lawsuits will emerge this year.

“We should expect to see more examples, more instances in which cellphone video is used to bolster legal claims against DHS, ICE, Border Patrol and specific officers as well,” said García Hernández, of Ohio State University.

Federal officers are shielded by legal doctrines such as qualified immunity and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that restrict when people can sue federal officials for constitutional violations. In recent years, the courts have narrowed the circumstances under which individuals can bring claims for excessive force or wrongful death.

Suing individual federal immigration agents is nearly impossible.

People can, however, pursue claims against the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act if a government employee causes financial or bodily harm. These cases, which can include claims for wrongful death, face significant hurdles: no punitive damages, no jury trials, state-specific caps on compensation and protections for discretionary government decisions.

Internal DHS investigations can lead to discipline or policy changes, but their findings may not be made public.

Several state lawmakers in California, Colorado, Georgia, New York and Oregon are pursuing measures that would allow residents to sue federal immigration agents for constitutional violations. Illinois has a similar law already in place, but this pathway remains largely untested, and experts say it faces significant legal and logistical hurdles.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, speaks with attendees of Kamala Harris for President campaign event in Phoenix in November 2024. (Photo by Gage Skidmore | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday asked a federal judge to deny Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly’s request to halt efforts within the Defense Department to punish him for appearing in a video where he urged members of the military not to follow illegal orders.

Attorneys for the Department of Justice asserted in a 52-page brief that the administration doesn’t believe federal courts hold jurisdiction over the matter, writing “the Judiciary does not superintend military personnel decisions.”

Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy captain, “is not a private citizen and does not enjoy the First Amendment freedom of speech as if he were one when being assessed by the military in military proceedings to determine whether his conduct comports with his obligations as a retired servicemember,” the brief states. 

Kelly’s lawsuit asked a federal judge for an emergency ruling declaring the Defense Department’s attempts to demote him and reduce his military retirement pay are “unlawful and unconstitutional.”

The lawsuit alleges the Pentagon’s actions against Kelly “trample on protections the Constitution singles out as essential to legislative independence.” 

“It appears that never in our nation’s history has the Executive Branch imposed military sanctions on a Member of Congress for engaging in disfavored political speech,” the lawsuit states. ”Allowing that unprecedented step here would invert the constitutional structure by subordinating the Legislative Branch to executive discipline and chilling congressional oversight of the armed forces.”

Video rankled Pentagon

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced earlier this month that he had started the process to downgrade Kelly’s retirement rank and pay, writing in a social media post that his “status as a sitting United States Senator does not exempt him from accountability, and further violations could result in further action.”

The Defense Department letter of censure to Kelly alleged that his participation in the video undermined the military chain of command, counseled disobedience, created confusion about duty, brought discredit upon the Armed Forces and included conduct unbecoming of an officer. 

The video at the center of the debate featured Kelly, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, Pennsylvania Reps. Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan, and New Hampshire Rep. Maggie Goodlander, all Democrats with backgrounds in the military or intelligence community.

They said that Americans in those institutions “can” and “must refuse illegal orders.”

“No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution. We know this is hard and that it’s a difficult time to be a public servant,” they said. “But whether you’re serving in the CIA, in the Army, or Navy, or the Air Force, your vigilance is critical.”

First Amendment doesn’t apply, DOJ says

Attorneys at the Justice Department, representing DOD in the case, argued in the brief they filed Thursday that no emergency relief is warranted, in part, because they believe Kelly’s First Amendment rights have not been violated. 

“Plaintiff is unlikely to succeed on his First Amendment claim because, as a retired servicemember, he has no First Amendment right to encourage other servicemembers to question the legitimacy of their military orders or to impugn their superior officers when such conduct violates his ongoing duties and obligations to the military,” the DOJ brief states. “The First Amendment is not a shield against the consequences of such violations in military personnel matters.”

Kelly’s constitutional protections as a member of the U.S. Senate under the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution also don’t apply in this instance, the DOJ legal team wrote. 

“A legislator’s public statements in interviews and on social media are not legislative acts protected by the Speech or Debate Clause,” DOJ wrote. 

The judge doesn’t need to issue emergency relief, the DOJ brief states, because there isn’t a separation-of-powers issue between the Executive Branch, where the Defense Department exists, and Kelly’s role as a senator in the Legislative Branch, which are considered separate but equal under the Constitution. 

Senior Judge Richard J. Leon, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush, has scheduled a hearing on the issue for Wednesday. 

Leon could rule from the bench during those proceedings or issue a written order anytime afterward. 

During debate on the floor, Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) said that the GOP Knowles-Nelson bill isn’t perfect but is a compromise that will allow the program to continue into the future. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner).

A pared-back proposal that will continue the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program, but without allowing for new land acquisition, passed the Assembly on Thursday, eliciting critical reactions from Democrats who said it won’t uphold the legacy of the program.

The Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship Program was initially created during the 1989-1990 legislative session and signed into law by former Gov. Tommy Thompson. With the goal of preserving wildlife habitat and expanding outdoor recreation opportunities throughout the state, the program has authorized state borrowing and spending for state land acquisition and for grants to local governments and nonprofit conservation organizations. It has traditionally received bipartisan support in Wisconsin as it has been reauthorized several times over the years.

Two GOP bills, coauthored by Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) and Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point), passed the Assembly in a 53-44 vote along party lines. The bills would extend the program for an additional two years, but in a limited form.

Under the amended proposal, the Knowles-Nelson program would be reauthorized until 2028, but the money set aside would mostly be for maintaining land that has already been purchased under the program.

The program’s land acquisition provisions have been essentially stripped in the legislation. 

A previous version of the GOP bill would have authorized the program until fiscal year 2029–30. Gov. Tony Evers in his 2025-27 state budget proposal had called for investing over $1 billion and reauthorizing the program for another 10 years. Republicans rejected the proposal. 

Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) blamed the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the state of the proposal.

Wisconsin lawmakers for years exercised control over what Knowles-Nelson projects received funding through the state’s powerful Joint Finance Committee. Members of the committee could anonymously object to a project and have it upheld for an indeterminate amount of time.

The program and the power of the committee became the focus of a fight over the balance of power between the governor and lawmakers, with the state Supreme Court ruling in 2025 that the Joint Finance Committee did not have the authority to hold up spending through anonymous objections. 

Sortwell said that the DNR should not be able to buy land without oversight from lawmakers.

“I don’t support their ideas to turn our authority of the Legislature over to unelected people,” Sortwell said. “We can build this up and do more things with it but let’s make sure we don’t lose what we have today. We can maintain the program. We can go ahead and make sure that we can keep the lands that we already have in good condition and continue moving forward.” 

Under the amended version of AB 315, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) would only be able to obligate $1 million for land acquisition — a cut from $16 million. The $1 million could only be used for the Ice Age Trail. The bill would also allow for DNR to obligate $9.25 million for property development and local assistance — a cut from $14.25 million. The program would also limit the amount that could be obligated for recreational boating aids to $3 million. 

The amended version of AB 612 reduces the amount that can be obligated each year to $13.25 million. It also includes $7.75 million for DNR property development and grants, $4 million for local assistance grants and $3 million for grants for wildlife habitat restoration. There would also be $250,000 set aside each year to be used for DNR land acquisitions, but acquisitions would be limited to parcels land that are 5 acres or less and meant to improve access to hunting, fishing, or trapping opportunities or is contiguous to state-owned land.

The bill would also require that large projects get approval from the full Legislature and limit grant or in-kind contributions for a project to 30%.

The DNR, under the bill, would also need to conduct a survey study of all of the land that has been acquired under the stewardship program including an inventory of all land acquired with money, proposed project boundaries and land acquisition priorities for the next two to five years, and proposed changes. The survey would need to be submitted to the Legislature in two years.

Recipients of a grant would also need to submit a report to the DNR on how the money was spent, and it would need to be publicly published. 

The program is set to expire on June 30, 2026, without a reauthorization from the Legislature and Gov. Tony Evers.

Ahead of the vote on Thursday, Team Knowles-Nelson, a coalition of Wisconsin environmental conservation organizations, fishing and hunting advocates, trail builders, bicycle enthusiasts and others, said in a letter urging lawmakers to vote against the bills on the Assembly floor that they don’t propose a “workable path forward.” 

“These bills include virtually no funding for land acquisition. Land trusts and local governments would have no dedicated ability to acquire land for either purpose — a fundamental departure from the program’s core mission,” Charles Carlin, the director of strategic initiatives at the nonprofit land trust organization Gathering Waters, said on behalf of the coalition. “While the bills provide habitat management grants to nonprofit conservation organizations, they impose an impractical framework. The grants are limited to habitat work on lands already owned by the state or local governments, excluding nonprofit-owned lands. This restriction undermines the collaborative conservation model that has made Knowles-Nelson successful for over three decades.” 

During debate on the two bills, Democratic lawmakers said the bills were inadequate and would not preserve the intent of the program. 

Rep. Vinnie Miresse (D-Stevens Point) declared that “every time Republicans amend the Knowles-Nelson proposal, it seems to get worse.” 

“Without land acquisition, Republicans have neutered this program and rendered it Knowles-Nelson in name only,” Miresse said. He added that lawmakers’ attitude of treating people with different opinions as a “threat” is how legislation that “ignores history, disregards broad public support and turns a shared legacy into just another talking point” gets a vote.

“They chose the extremes, and that choice will cost the state a program that Wisconsinites overwhelmingly support,” Miresse said. 

Rep. Angelito Tenorio (D-West Allis) said the bill is not a compromise, but is instead “table scraps.”

Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde (D-Milwaukee) talked about being a “birder” — someone who watches and observes birds as a hobby.

“We had the option to do a cost to continue… and it was rejected, and that disheartens me because when I go to places like Horicon Marsh when the birds are coming in, are migrating in, and I get to see goldfinches — there’s nothing like watching a chimney swift swoop down and try to get some food, or when you’re out and just walking around and navigating a red-winged blackbird swoops down tries to peck you in the head because it thinks that you are a crane trying to steal its eggs,” Moore Omokunde said. “We need to provide these opportunities for so many people in the state of Wisconsin to enjoy this.”

Republican lawmakers argued that the proposal was better than the Knowles-Nelson program ceasing to exist.

Rep. Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) said that the bill isn’t perfect but is a compromise that will allow the program to continue into the future. He added that it would “help preserve some of our beautiful natural areas” for future generations to enjoy.

“Sometimes we get caught up in partisan politics, but let’s not make this about partisan politics. This bill deserves strong, bipartisan support,” Kaufert said. 

“I would rather take half a cookie today, rather than no cookie today to make sure that we can continue the program,” Sortwell said. “You gotta vote yes today because if you vote no, you’re saying, you know, what? I’m not willing to compromise. It’s not good enough for me, and I’m going to vote no, because I’m going to be like a little kid and take my ball and go home.”

Evers told lawmakers in a letter earlier this month that he was “hopeful” they would be able to move forward on a reauthorization proposal for the Knowles-Nelson program.

“I would be glad to sign any reauthorization proposal that appropriately supports both land acquisition and property management of Wisconsin’s valuable natural resources and public lands to secure the future of this program that is so fundamental to Wisconsin’s proud and cherished tradition of conservation,” Evers said.

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Correction: This story has been updated to correctly state the amount of money the amended bills would dedicate to the program.

A gray wolf. (Wisconsin DNR photo)

Wisconsin Republicans on Thursday continued their yearslong effort to reverse the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource’s decision not to quantify a specific statewide goal for the state’s gray wolf population with a public hearing on a bill that would require the agency to set one. 

The bill, authored by Sen. Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond) and Rep. Chanz Green (R-Grand View), is unlikely to be signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers if it’s passed, but shows how the contentious politics around wolves continue to play a major role in the state’s natural resource policy debates — especially in an election year. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, seen as the frontrunner in the Republican primary for governor, was the author of a bill recently passed in the House that would remove the gray wolf from the federal endangered species list. 

State law in Wisconsin requires that whenever the wolf isn’t listed as endangered, the state must hold an annual wolf hunt. 

The state’s wolf management plan was updated for the first time in decades in 2023. The plan was established after a two and a half year process involving an advisory committee made up of 28 member organizations and thousands of public comments. 

Prior to the current plan’s adoption, Wisconsin was operating under a plan that was first approved in 1999 and then updated in 2007. That plan went into effect as the state was working to responsibly handle the animal’s return to the state after its extirpation in the 1960s. 

Initially, the state set a  population goal of 350 wolves. 

More than a quarter century after the 1999 plan’s adoption, the state’s wolf population is estimated to be about 1,200 wolves. The 350 number that was initially set as an aspiration for a healthy wolf population has come to be seen by some hunters and farmers as a wolf population ceiling. 

But under the current wolf management plan, the DNR opted to use an “adaptive management” system which forgoes setting a specific population number. Instead, the state gets divided into zones and in each zone the DNR annually assesses the local wolf population to decide if it needs to be kept stable, allowed to grow or reduced through a hunt. 

Adaptive management is the method used by the state for most other game species, including black bear, bobcat, coyote, white-tailed deer and wild turkey. But since the plan’s adoption, Republicans have been opposed to using the method for wolves. 

Rep. Green, the bill’s co-author, said that the growth of the wolf population in northern Wisconsin is causing a number of problems, including in the area’s deer population. 

“We’d like to see a wolf management goal in place where — most of these wolves are concentrated in northern Wisconsin and we’d like to see that reduced,” Green said. “It’s been heavily impacted on our deer populations and things like that.”

Research has shown that Wisconsin’s wolves have helped cause a noticeable decline in the number of vehicle-deer collisions that occur in the state. 

At the hearing, Chris Vaughan, Wisconsin director of the pro-hunting organization Hunter Nation, complained that the wolf management plan focuses too much on the social effects of the wolf population, putting too much weight on people’s personal views about wolves. Vaughan lamented how frequently Wisconsin’s plan uses the word “social” compared to other states

But representatives of the DNR said social carrying capacity is an important consideration for biologists when managing any species. 

“Dare I say the biological part of wolf management is the easy part,” Randy Johnson, the DNR’s large carnivore species specialist, said. ”We know how to have a pretty good system of monitoring the population. The science is pretty clear about how we can move the population up and down through harvest. It is the social side of this that continues to be the difficult part of it. Everybody knows it’s a contentious issue. Some people see it different ways, some people want more, some people want less and it’s our job to try to balance that.” 

Proponents of a hard limit on the wolf population also cast their argument in social terms.

Brad Olson, president of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, said the state should have a specific population number to assuage the feelings of farmers who are traumatized by losing livestock to wolves. 

“For those of us who live in wolf country and deal with wolves on a day in, day out basis, at times, I think the number is very important to those of us in wolf country who have these issues,” Olson said. “You haven’t been on the farms like I have where, where the mule has been killed by a pack of wolves … and I think in all of this, what we’re really missing from the legislative side, from the DNR side, is we’re missing the impact of the mental health on rural ag and those in rural Wisconsin.” 

“When compared to other species where adaptive management works, wolves sit at a completely different intersection of biology, social politics and law, where this vague management tool is impossible to apply,” Vaughan said.

Democrats on the committee questioned the prudence of changing the DNR’s management plan before the wolf has been delisted and the plan has a chance to be put to the test when a hunt must be held. 

“So if we actually could accomplish [a healthy wolf population] utilizing the tools and the science that the DNR has provided, would that or would that not actually accomplish the goal?” Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) asked.

Data centers are mushrooming all over the country, with many planned projects on deck in Wisconsin. We need to get ahead of them by putting in place protections for the state's energy and water resources. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)

Wisconsin stands at a pivotal moment.

Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and hyperscale data centers are arriving quickly, bringing enormous demand for electricity and water. The real question is not whether these investments will come, but how we manage them and who pays the costs if we get it wrong.

Families want affordable bills. Businesses want reliable power. Communities want clean water and economic opportunity. We need a  common-sense approach to guide how we respond to rapid data center growth.

An unprecedented load and a real affordability risk

The scale of proposed data centers is unlike anything Wisconsin has seen.

Just two projects, one in Port Washington and another in Mount Pleasant, have requested nearly four gigawatts of electricity combined. That is more power than all Wisconsin households use today.

Meeting this demand will require massive investments in power plants, transmission lines, substations, pipelines and water infrastructure. But under Wisconsin’s current utility model, these costs are not paid only by the companies driving demand. They are instead spread across all of us who pay electric bills, including families, farms, and small businesses that won’t benefit from data center power.

For small businesses operating on thin margins, even modest increases in electric or water rates affect hiring, pricing and long-term viability. In rural communities with fewer customers sharing infrastructure costs, the impact can be even more severe.

This concern is already becoming real. Utilities are citing data center demand to justify new methane gas plants and delaying coal plant retirements. Utilities doubling down on fossil fuels should give every one of us pause.

Why costly gas is the wrong answer

Building new methane gas plants for data centers would lock customers into decades of fuel price volatility, even though cleaner options have become cheaper and faster to deploy.

Wind, solar and battery storage can come online far more quickly than fossil fuel plants and without exposing families and businesses to unpredictable fuel costs. Battery storage costs alone have fallen nearly 90% over the past decade. 

Across the country, these tools are replacing methane gas plants in states as different as Texas and California.

There is also a serious risk that we will pay higher bills for decades, even when data centers stop using those methane gas plants. In Nevada, a major utility has acknowledged that only about 15% of proposed data centers are likely to be built. When speculative projects fall through, all of us are left to pay for infrastructure we actually never needed.

This is not ideology. It is basic financial risk management, and basic fairness.

Clean energy is the lowest-cost path

Wisconsin policymakers and elected officials need to put guardrails in place to protect everyday residents from the AI bubble that’s threatening the state. The core principle should be that data centers operate on 100% clean energy, not as a slogan, but because it is the lowest-cost and lowest-risk option over time.

A smart framework would require developers to:

• Supply at least 30% of their power from on-site and Wisconsin-based renewable energy
• Offset additional demand through energy efficiency, demand response – at least 25% of peak capacity and smart grid flexibility
• Participate fully in utility efficiency and renewable energy programs rather than opting out
• Each data center project should require a legally binding Community Benefit Agreement that clearly defines community protections and benefits, negotiated among developers, local governments, neighborhood-based organizations and underserved communities

This approach reduces peak demand, lowers infrastructure costs and protects existing customers while allowing data centers to advance.

Major companies like Microsoft, Google and Meta have already publicly committed to operating on carbon-free energy. We need to hold them to that. Wisconsin risks losing our competitive advantage if we default to gas-heavy solutions instead of offering clean, flexible grids.

Water is a non-negotiable constraint

Energy is not the only concern. Water matters just as much.

A single hyperscale data center can use millions of gallons of water per day, either directly for cooling or indirectly through power generation. In communities with limited water systems, that can crowd out agricultural use and raise residents’ water bills.

Wisconsin should require closed-loop cooling systems, full accounting of direct and indirect water use, and ongoing public reporting to ensure local water supplies are protected.

A practical path forward

Wisconsin does not have to choose between economic growth and affordability. We can do both if we insist on clear guardrails.

That means requiring data centers to pay the full cost of service, powering growth with clean energy first, and protecting water resources and ratepayers from unnecessary risk.

Data centers are coming. The question is whether Wisconsin families and small businesses will be partners in that growth or be left paying higher bills for decades to come.

If we choose smart clean power over costly gas, Wisconsin can lead.

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Former special counsel Jack Smith arrives to testify during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on Jan. 22, 2026 in Washington, DC.  (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Republicans on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee sought to poke holes Thursday in former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into President Donald Trump, while Democrats on the panel commended him and Smith restated his finding that Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election results.

Republicans on the panel accused Smith, a longtime prosecutor who has led investigations of public officials of both major U.S. parties and international figures, of undertaking a partisan probe targeting Trump ahead of the 2024 election. 

“It was always about politics,” Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said to open the hearing.

During the hearing, Trump posted on social media a suggestion that he would seek to prosecute Smith. 

But Smith, and the many Democrats on the committee who defended him Thursday, repeatedly asserted that his investigation was by the book, guided by Justice Department policies, legal requirements, “the facts and the law.”

“I made my decisions without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs or candidacy in the 2024 election,” Smith said in an opening statement. “President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law — the very laws he swore an oath to defend.”

Smith led two prosecutions of Trump during the years between his presidential terms. 

One, in District of Columbia federal court, accused Trump of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results. The other, in Florida federal court, accused Trump of mishandling classified documents. 

Grand juries indicted Trump in both cases but the Justice Department dropped both cases after Trump’s 2024 election victory, consistent with department policy that forbids prosecution of a sitting president.

Trump attempting ‘intimidation’

Midway through the five-hour hearing, Trump posted to Truth Social his analysis of the meeting and a veiled threat against Smith.

“Deranged Jack Smith is being DECIMATED before Congress,” he wrote. “If he were a Republican, his license would be taken away from him, and far worse! Hopefully the Attorney General is looking at what he’s done, including some of the crooked and corrupt witnesses that he was attempting to use in his case against me. The whole thing was a Democrat SCAM — A big price should be paid by them for what they have put our Country through!”

In the hearing room, Smith directly rejected charges he was motivated by partisanship, and said he would not give in to intimidation attempts by Trump.

“If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican,” he said. “No one — no one — should be above the law in this country.”

Vermont Democrat Becca Balint noted Trump had used the term “Deranged Jack Smith” 185 times on Truth Social. 

“I think … the statements are meant to intimidate me. I will not be intimidated. I think these statements are also made as a warning to others what will happen if they stand up,” Smith responded. 

“We did our work pursuant to department policy,” he continued. “We followed the facts, we followed the law, and that process resulted in proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he committed serious crimes. I’m not going to pretend that didn’t happen because he’s threatening me.”

Phone records

Several committee Republicans challenged Smith’s pursuit of phone records from members of Congress related to the election interference case.

The case included an examination of Trump’s attempt to block Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, on Jan. 6, 2021. Smith and other prosecutors sought phone logs leading up to the eventual attack on the Capitol that day.

Republicans on the panel accused Smith of violating Congress’ rights as a co-equal branch of government and took further umbrage at efforts by Smith and his colleagues to keep the records requests secret, and noted that only Republicans’ records had been sought.

Jordan said his phone records were among those obtained, and described the entire investigation as a partisan attack on Trump.

“Even the Democrats said this was wrong,” he said. “We shouldn’t be surprised. Democrats have been going after President Trump for 10 years, for a decade, and the country should never, ever forget what they did.”

Smith said the investigation had to do with Trump’s pressure campaign on members of Congress to object to the election results, including appeals to Republicans’ partisan loyalties. If the president had been a Democrat, he’d have sought Democrats’ records, he said.

He and Democrats on the panel also noted that the phone records only included data like the length, time and date of phone calls, without disclosing anything about their content. Such records are typical pieces of conspiracy investigations, they said.

Complimentary Dems

Democrats complimented and defended Smith throughout the hearing. 

“Special Counsel Smith, you pursued the facts,” ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin of Maryland said. “You followed every applicable law, ethics rule and DOJ regulation. Your decisions were reviewed by the Public Integrity Section. You acted based solely on the facts.”

Raskin contrasted Smith’s approach with that of Trump, who he said sought unprecedented control over the Justice Department to pursue “political vendetta and motives of personal revenge.”

Several other Democratic members held Smith up as an exemplary public servant.

“I want to thank you for your service,” Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen said. 

“I think you’re a great American, and you came out of this as being somebody who people can respect and look up to,” he said. “We should be instilling people’s desire to go into justice, to go into law, to go into government. You’re an example of the type of person they should follow.”

Ensign Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. (Photo by Zach Spindler-Krage)

A proposal to repeal a ban on mining in northeastern Minnesota’s Superior National Forest is headed to the U.S. Senate following approval in the House, reigniting a long-simmering fight between environmentalists and pro-mining interests.

The reaction of outdoors and environmental groups was swift Wednesday.

“Congress just tossed aside years of scientific study and local input about how to conserve the headwaters of this wilderness for future generations, allowing the threat of toxic mining to return,” Jordan Schreiber, director of government relations at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. He called on the Senate to “reject this attack and the precedent it sets to arbitrarily strike down” public land protections.

House Republicans voted Wednesday to undo former President Joe Biden’s 20-year moratorium on the extraction of copper, nickel and other minerals across more than 225,000 acres near the popular Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. If approved by the Republican-controlled Senate, the resolution would next go to President Donald Trump, who has indicated he would sign it into law. 

The resolution requires only a simple majority vote to pass the Senate, rather than a filibuster-proof majority.

Republican Congressman Pete Stauber, whose Duluth-based district covers the area, introduced the resolution last year. It uses an obscure but increasingly popular procedural tool that allows Congress to void certain Executive Branch actions.

In a statement Wednesday, Stauber hailed the resolution’s passage as a win for the regional economy, national security and congressional prerogatives. The resolution would prevent future administrations from imposing similar bans in the future.

“Reversing Biden’s mining ban will protect Northern Minnesota jobs, strengthen national security through domestic production, and prevent future overreaches from happening again,” Stauber said.

Organized labor cheered the move, too, albeit in terms more palatable to the Democratic base.

“One of the most important contributions Minnesota can make to the fight against climate change is leading the world in setting the highest bar for labor and environmental protections in the responsible production of copper, nickel and other critical minerals,” Joel Smith, president and business manager of LIUNA Minnesota and North Dakota, said in a statement, also mentioning the promise of “family-supporting careers” for union members and “community-supporting jobs at schools, hospitals, public and private sector employers.”

Environmental and outdoor recreation groups have long opposed mining near the Boundary Waters, a remote section of Superior National Forest along the border with Canada. The groups say it would disturb critical habitats and pollute a pristine watershed enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. 

In a statement describing the resolution as an unprecedented use of congressional power over public land use, Save the Boundary Waters urged voters to contact their senators and push for a “no” vote on the resolution. Save the Boundary Waters is pushing for a permanent ban on copper-ore sulfide mining in the boundary watershed. Citing peer-reviewed scientific research, the group says mining for copper and other heavy metals inevitably leaches sulfuric acid, toxic metals and other pollutants into surrounding water systems, harming the natural environment and imperiling tourism.

Northeast Minnesota sits atop the Duluth Complex, one of the world’s richest deposits of copper and nickel. Twin Metals, a subsidiary of the Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta, wants to extract both minerals — along with cobalt and other precious metals — from underground veins near Ely and Babbitt, about a dozen miles from the wilderness area.

It would be the first copper-nickel mine in Minnesota, which produces most of the United States’ domestic iron but few other metals. Regional and state officials have sought for years to reduce northeastern Minnesota’s economic dependence on volatile global markets for iron and steel. Its rich deposits of higher-value metals, along with elusive gases like helium and possibly hydrogen, could offer a lifeline.

The Twin Metals project has been in development for more than 15 years amid an arduous state and federal permitting process. It suffered a severe setback in early 2023 when the Biden administration announced a 20-year moratorium on mining across 350 square miles of the Superior National Forest, though Minnesota has issued new mineral exploration permits in the years since.  

Copper, nickel, cobalt and some precious metals are key inputs for a bevy of medical, automotive and industrial products. They’re also needed to produce wind turbines, solar panels, rechargeable batteries and other electrical technologies that scientists say are crucial for mitigating local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentalists say the the demand can be met with more robust recycling. 

Mining companies and their allies say it’s better for everyone’s sake to extract them in the United States rather than countries with lax environmental and human health protections, such as China or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Removing the 20-year moratorium allows “proposed developments to proceed through the world’s strictest state and federal regulatory and permitting processes,” Stauber said on Wednesday.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance gives remarks following a roundtable discussion with local leaders and community members amid a surge of federal immigration authorities in the area, at Royalston Square on January 22, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Trump administration has sent a reported 3,000-plus federal agents into the area, with more on the way, as they make a push to arrest undocumented immigrants in the region. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday blamed Minnesota elected officials for the clashes between federal agents and protesters, arguing that their refusal to facilitate the federal government’s immigration enforcement is the cause of the chaos across the Twin Cities.

Vance held a closed-door roundtable with federal agents, law enforcement and businesses. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, confirmed after the fact that they were in the room with Vance, though other participants are unknown.

Democrats who said they were not invited included Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

Vance took questions from reporters, defending the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and downplaying recent, high-profile instances of alleged civil rights violations committed by federal agents.

In at least one instance, Vance misled the public when he said the Trump administration is focused on Minneapolis because “that’s where we have the highest concentration of people who have violated our immigration laws.” This is false.

Pew Research estimates that 130,000 undocumented immigrants lived in Minnesota as of 2023.

States that are the most populous — California, Texas, Florida and New York — had the highest concentration of unauthorized immigrations, a combined 8 million in 2023.

A reporter asked the vice president about agents detaining a 5-year-old boy, whom the Columbia Heights Public School district says agents used as “bait” to draw family members away from their homes.

Vance said the incident is an example of the media failing to provide context about ICE’s arrests. Vance said the boy was not arrested, but the boy’s father was in the country illegally. When ICE approached the father, he ran and left his child, Vance said.

“Are they supposed to let a five-year-old child freeze to death? Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?” Vance asked sarcastically. “… If we had a little cooperation from local … and state officials, I think the chaos would go way down in this community.”

At a Thursday press conference, a lawyer for the boy’s family disputed that the father was in the country illegally, stating he came into the country a few years ago seeking asylum.

Vance said the administration wants Minnesota law enforcement to work with the federal government and honor ICE “detainers.” Detainers are written requests from ICE that a local jail or other law enforcement detain an individual for an additional 48 hours to give ICE time to decide to take the person into federal custody to begin removal proceedings.

Minnesota officials say that they honor ICE detainers. In addition, some of the arrests that ICE claims to have made in recent weeks were people already in prison that Minnesota handed over.

Vance downplays arrests of U.S. citizens

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last week alleging that immigration authorities are racially profiling Minnesota residents and detaining people with legal status, even U.S. citizens. Numerous U.S. citizens have said they’ve been arrested by ICE.

When asked about alleged instances of racial profiling and arrests of U.S. citizens, Vance said citizens are arrested because they’ve assaulted immigration agents, and agents are not looking for people based on skin color.

“When there are American citizens who have been caught up in some of these enforcement operations, very often it is people who have assaulted a law enforcement officer,” Vance said. “They’re not being arrested because they violated the immigration laws. They’re being arrested because they punched a federal law enforcement officer. That is a totally reasonable thing.”

He again blamed Minnesota officials.

“So long as we had more cooperation, I think they can do these things in a much more targeted way. They would actually know where some of the bad guys are,” Vance said.

Vance said that based on what he heard in his roundtable Thursday, he doesn’t believe the Insurrection Act needs to be invoked at this time, like President Donald Trump threatened last week. The Insurrection Act is a rarely-invoked 19th century law that would allow Trump to send the military to Minnesota.

“What I do worry about again is that the chaos gets worse. If more and more ICE agents are getting assaulted, if other law enforcement officers start getting assaulted, that would be a real problem,” Vance said. 

After Vance’s visit, Walz said the estimated 3,000 federal agents patrolling Minnesota shouldn’t be there.

“I’m glad the Vice President agrees the temperature needs to be turned down, but actions speak louder than words,” Walz said on X. “Take the show of force off the streets and partner with the state on targeted enforcement of violent offenders instead of random, aggressive confrontation.”

The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C., home of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops came under scrutiny again in federal court Thursday — this time before a three-judge appeals panel considering the merits of the president’s executive order.

The policy has been challenged in two major federal cases, one of which the administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s emergency docket. In May, the justices allowed the ban to go into effect while the lawsuits continue in the lower courts.

For just over three hours at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, judges pressed the Trump administration and the lawyer for the plaintiffs in Talbott v. Trump for clarity on the ban instituted just under one year ago.

The panel was made up of Judges Judith W. Rogers, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994; Robert L. Wilkins, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014; and Justin R. Walker, a 2019 Trump appointee.

U.S. Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli, arguing for the administration, told the judges the ban in question rests on the findings and policy of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis. 

“The Mattis report does provide the rationale,” Kambli said, when pressed by Wilkins on why “people who’ve been in (service) for years, with Bronze Stars and commendations” are swept up in the policy.

“What we have here is an area of medicine, which we can all agree there’s uncertainty over,” Kambli argued.

Mattis, who served during Trump’s first term, disqualified transgender service members from the military, except in very narrow circumstances. 

A February 2022 Defense Department report concluded that transgender service members, even members who are not suffering a gender dysphoria diagnosis, “could undermine readiness, disrupt unit cohesion, and impose an unreasonable burden on the military.”

Kambli, moments later, added the courts are “ill equipped” to decide the issue and should show deference to the military.

But Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said Kambli and the Trump administration ignored new information revealed after President Joe Biden reversed the Mattis ban and allowed transgender troops to serve openly.

Minter, who argued in court for the plaintiffs, said there was “zero evidence of any problems. … That is part of the record now.”

“So for someone to come in and just go back to keeping people out … this is based on animus,” Minter said.

The government “has to show there is a legitimate purpose,” Minter said.

Process for discharging trans troops debated

Kambli told the judges that “so far no one has been discharged” and the policy is still “in progress.”

The transgender service members would be informed via letter of an honorable discharge, and would have the opportunity to go before a three-officer administrative discharge panel, he said. 

The special panel process is usually reserved for members who’ve served six or more years, but the military will make an exception for trans members with less than six years of service, Kambli added.  

In an animated exchange, Rogers pressed back: “The end result is predetermined. It’s a meaningless process. It’s just moving paper around.”

Jennifer Levi, senior director for GLAD Law, one of the organizations representing the roughly 30 plaintiffs, told States Newsroom after the arguments that trans members have already been “forced out” through a voluntary process.

“This was an important hearing, and the plaintiffs in this case are all meeting military standards and reflect some of the highest ideals of this country. They’ve committed their lives to service, and the military has conceded that they have been able to contribute and meet all of the rigorous standards for service,” Levi said.

“This hearing brought out just how devastating and harmful it is to purge a group of people who have been contributing and putting their lives on the line in service of the country.”

The Pentagon declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.

Trump order

Trump signed the order on Jan. 27, 2025, asserting the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” 

Further, the order said that being transgender is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

Eight active-duty service members and transgender individuals who are actively pursuing enlistment in the armed forces initially brought the case against Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among other officials and three branches of the U.S. military. The number of plaintiffs has since grown.

U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Ana Reyes granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction in mid-March, criticizing the administration in her 79-page opinion for a lack of data proving the claims in Trump’s order.

“Transgender persons have served openly since 2021, but Defendants have not analyzed their service. That is unfortunate. Plaintiffs’ service records alone are Exhibit A for the proposition that transgender persons can have the warrior ethos, physical and mental health, selflessness, honor, integrity, and discipline to ensure military excellence,” Reyes wrote.

Administration officials swiftly appealed the case to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Oral arguments were heard April 22 before Judges  Cornelia Pillard, appointed during Obama’s second term, and Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, both appointed during Trump’s first term.

On Dec. 9, the three judges issued a 2-1 decision staying the lower court’s preliminary injunction, with Katsas and Rao writing the Hegseth policy “likely does not violate equal protection.” 

Pillard issued a blistering dissent, asserting the ban “brands all transgender people, without regard to individual merit, as unworthy to serve in our armed forces solely because they are transgender.”

In a separate case, Shilling, et al v. Trump, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 18 upheld a lower court’s ruling that allowed transgender troops to continue serving, denying the government’s appeal. 

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Trump to ban transgender people from the military.

Smoke is seen over buildings after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard on Jan. 3, 2026 in Caracas, Venezuela. (Photo by Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House failed Thursday to back a resolution curbing President Donald Trump’s military operations abroad, following U.S. intervention to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Thursday’s resolution tied at 215-215. If passed, it would have directed “the President to remove United States Armed Forces from Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization for use of military force.”

Republicans Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Don Bacon of Nebraska voted in favor, along with all Democrats present. The vote was held open for about an hour to allow Texas Republican Wesley Hunt to arrive and cast a vote against the resolution.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, earlier this month were taken by the U.S. military to face an indictment in New York City on narco-terrorism and conspiracy charges originally levied in 2020. The couple has pleaded not guilty. 

The Jan. 3 military operation in Venezuela was conducted without approval of or notification to Congress.

Prior to the military operation in Venezuela, the Trump administration had conducted a monthslong bombing campaign of small boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. strikes have killed more than 115 people whom Trump officials have alleged, without proof, were smuggling drugs to the U.S.

Both chambers have now tried to curb Trump’s military actions in Latin America through a war powers resolution, but have not been able to gain enough votes. 

The Senate earlier this month was initially successful in a procedural vote on a war powers resolution, but the measure eventually failed after two Republicans who had backed the measure voted against it.

Congress passed a war powers resolution in 1973 to limit the president’s authority to wage war overseas after the Nixon administration secretly bombed Vietnam and Cambodia, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Then-President Richard Nixon vetoed the resolution, but Congress overrode the veto. 

Federal agents block in and stop a woman to ask her for another person’s whereabouts Monday, Jan. 19, 2026 in south Minneapolis. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

WASHINGTON — The House Thursday passed four appropriations bills to fund the government and avert a partial shutdown, but Democrats largely objected to spending on the Department of Homeland Security amid aggressive immigration enforcement in communities across the country. 

Democrats have pushed for tougher oversight of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. In addition, members of the progressive wing of the caucus vowed to not approve any funding for DHS after federal immigration agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier this month. 

The 37-year-old mother’s death led to massive community protests and  thousands of ICE agents have aggressively descended into Minnesota.

“(Homeland Security Secretary) Kristi Noem and ICE are out of control,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. “Taxpayer dollars are being misused to brutalize U.S. citizens, including the tragic killing of Renee Nicole Good. This extremism must end.” 

The four bills — Defense; Homeland Security; Labor, Health and Human Services and Education; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development — are the last remaining appropriations bills needed to avoid a partial government shutdown by Jan. 30. 

The Homeland Security funding bill passed 220-207. The remaining bills passed 341-88.

Democrats who joined Republicans in voting for the Homeland Security bill included Reps. Jared Gold of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state, Tom Suozzi of New York, Don Davis of North Carolina, Laura Gillen of New York and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas.

Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted against the DHS funding bill.

Separately, GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx, chairwoman of the Rules Committee, added a provision to repeal a law that allows members of the U.S. Senate to sue for up to half a million dollars if their phone records were obtained by special counsel Jack Smith during his investigation into President Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. In a rare move, the provision passed unanimously. 

Smith was also on Capitol Hill Thursday to testify about his investigation before lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 

The Senate will take up the appropriations bills when senators return from recess next week.

What does the Homeland Security bill include?

The Homeland Security bill provides $64.4 billion in funding for fiscal year 2026. It cuts funding for Customs and Border Protection by $1.3 billion, and maintains flat funding for ICE at $10 billion.

The bill attempts to put guardrails around immigration enforcement by allocating $20 million for body cameras for ICE and CBP officers. 

It also requires DHS to provide monthly updates on how the agency is spending the $190 billion it received from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the president’s signature tax and spending cuts package signed into law last summer.  

The bill also restricts ICE to spending only $3.8 billion of its fiscal budget on detention. However, the agency will still be able to pull $75 billion from OBBBA, including for detention.

Most Dems say they can’t back any ICE funding

During Thursday’s debate of the bill, Republicans supported the Homeland Security bill, and argued that it contains other agencies beside immigration enforcement. 

But a majority of Democrats said they could not vote to approve the agency’s funding because of ICE’s actions.

“I think we should look at the bill in its totality,” GOP Appropriations Chair Tom Cole of Oklahoma said. “Encouraging people to believe we have massive bad actors in a particular agency… comparing law enforcement officers to the Gestapo or Nazis, that’s not true. The right thing to do is to fund the people who protect America.”

Foxx criticized Democrats for their concerns over ICE enforcement tactics. On the House floor, she defended the agency, arguing that “ICE agents are arresting some of the worst criminals imaginable.”

“The issue is that ICE is terrorizing communities and attacking people, including U.S. citizens,” countered the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. “This is an out-of-control agency at war with communities across the country and they don’t give a damn that you are a U.S. citizen.”

The top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said he could not support voting for the bill because the Trump administration has weaponized the agency and “DHS has strayed from its core mission.”

“Republicans in control of Congress, however, are conducting zero oversight and do nothing but send blank check after blank check to DHS,” he said in a statement. “I have consistently supported the DHS workforce over the past two decades and continue to do so, but I cannot – in good conscience – vote to send another dime to CBP and ICE as they terrorize our communities and sully the constitution.”

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said she will vote against the bill, even though she is proud of several provisions, such as the increase to Federal Emergency Management Agency funding and a pay raise for air traffic controllers. 

But, she said, “It is impossible to ignore the impact ICE has had.”

“ICE is an agency that has shown itself to be lawless,” she said.

Republicans tout body camera provision

GOP Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, the chair of the panel that deals with funding for Homeland Security, defended the funding bill, and noted that it provides immigration officers with body cameras. He said funds are also provided in the measure for the Coast Guard and agencies dealing with cybersecurity. 

Cuellar of Texas, the top Democrat on that same panel, acknowledged that “this bill is not perfect.” 

“It’s better than the alternative, leaving the department with a blank check,” he said. “This bill flat funds ICE but at the same time, we strengthen oversight of ICE.”

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum said the ICE enforcement in Minnesota and across the country is one of the “worst cases of civil rights violations by the federal government in recent history.”   

“Minnesotans are being racially profiled on a mass scale, assaulted on our streets, kidnapped from our communities,” she said. 

At least 40 immigrants ICE arrested in Minneapolis in recent weeks are being detained at the Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, three detainees told Source New Mexico. (Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)

Dozens of immigrants currently housed at a New Mexico detention facility arrived there recently from the Minneapolis area, the site of a massive federal immigration operation and intensifying protests.

Three detainees at the Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia told Source New Mexico in phone interviews Wednesday evening that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested them separately in Minnesota on or around Jan. 5 before quickly flying them to a detention facility in El Paso, which was rapidly filling with new arrestees as they stayed there for several days. 

On Jan. 11, officers woke them up around 4 a.m. and bussed about 40 of them to Estancia, a journey that required detainees to be awake for 24 hours, detainee Jorge Cordoba told Source. Everyone on the bus to Estancia was arrested in Minneapolis or nearby, he said. 

Cordoba, 33, said he has lived in Minneapolis for more than 20 years and lives in the United States legally under protected Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival status granted to immigrants who arrived here as children. His parents brought him here from Mexico when he was 10, he said. 

“My wife is a U.S. citizen. I have four kids,” he said. “I’ve been a pretty good citizen. It’s been more than 10 years since I got a speeding ticket.”

Cordoba’s protected status didn’t stop an ICE agent from arresting him around 4:30 a.m. Jan. 5 on his way to work at a humidity control company, he said. ICE agents took him to a temporary detention facility in the city and, by 10 p.m. that night, Cordoba was already in El Paso, he said. 

While Source could not independently corroborate his account, Innovation Law Lab, an immigrant legal advocacy group, provided details of its own interviews with recent jail arrivals, including one account that matches Cordoba’s. 

Now Cordoba remains in New Mexico awaiting a hearing before a judge to demonstrate that he still has DACA status.

“I’m stuck here,” he said. 

Irina Vaynerman, a Minnesota-based lawyer with the organization Groundwork Legal, told Source on Thursday that ICE is deliberately shipping detainees to far-away facilities to deprive them of legal access and family support. 

Her organization is seeking a federal judge’s order to return one of her clients from New Mexico. In a legal filing Wednesday, she argued that “Oscar O.T.”, a Guatemalan man seeking asylum, is being denied constitutional due process and that his transfer to New Mexico violates a judicial order that he be able to face a judge in Minnesota. 

“This is just part of a much bigger story about not just the unlawful detentions that are happening, but on top of that, the intentional evading of the court’s orders and court’s jurisdiction,” she said.

She said ICE shipping detainees out-of-state prevents “individuals who have been unlawfully detained from being able to connect with local counsel and file the legal actions they need to be able to get free.”

In Oscar’s case, she said, ICE’s system for lawyers to track their clients was not working, so they had no clue where he was until she got an email from ICE saying he was being held in “Albuquerque.” 

No ICE detention facility exists in Albuquerque, so Vayneman said it’s possible he is actually in Estancia, an hour or so away from Albuquerque, and was bussed there along with fellow Minneapolis residents from El Paso. 

“That is the type of insanity that is going on, the intentional disappearing of Minnesotans who have been unlawfully detained,” she said. “It is genuinely the government’s effort to try to erase entire swaths of the U.S. population in an unlawful way.”

An ICE spokesperson did not respond to Source’s request for comment about why the agency would hold Minneapolis arrestees in Estancia. A spokesperson for CoreCivic, which owns and operates the facility, referred Source’s request for comment to ICE.

It’s not clear exactly how many Minneapolis arrestees are held in Estancia. Tiffany Wang, a lawyer with Innovation Law Lab, told Source on Wednesday that a “decent number” of roughly 100 detainees the group spoke with last week were from Minnesota. The Portland-based immigrant legal advocacy group does weekly jail visits. 

Wang said her best guess as to why ICE would select Estancia is that the jail has space, following a reduction in detainees that coincided with a two-month-long contract expiration between ICE and CoreCivic late last year. She noted that many detainees previously arrived there from a makeshift ICE facility in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

“TCDF just has served as this holding place for people caught in other states, and sent here with really no regard to the family that they have in other places or with the attorneys that they may have in their home states, or anything,” she said.

The Legislature is currently considering a ban on public entities like Torrance County from contracting with ICE and CoreCivic for the purpose of immigrant detention. One reason lawmakers cite is to prevent public bodies from being complicit in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation push in New Mexico and across the country. 

A New Mexico House committee is scheduled to take up the bill Thursday afternoon.

Cordoba, along with fellow Estancia detainees Cirilo Figueroa and Felix Garcia, all told Source they worry most about their families more than 1,200 miles away in Minnesota amid protests and an immigration crackdown that have seized the city. Like Cordoba, Garcia and Figueroa said they’ve lived in the city more than 20 years. Garcia, 59, has 12 grandchildren, as well as a nephew whom ICE briefly detained despite him being a US citizen, he said. 

All have watched local news reports from inside the jail showing the chaos in their hometown, they said, and described feeling powerless to help their families from so far away. 

“It’s not fair,” Cordoba said, his voice cracking, “what’s happening.”

Colleagues of Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz, a civil engineer with a work visa detained by agents Thursday morning, discuss where to move his car. Colleagues Amanda Barnett, left, and Ali Brady, right, talk to Top of the Old Port parking lot attendant, Greg Seligman. (Photo by Rose Lundy/ The Maine Monitor)

Masked agents in police vests detained Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz, a civil engineer from Colombia employed by an engineering consulting company, in Portland on Thursday morning. Carvajal-Munoz earned a master’s degree from the University of Maine, and colleagues said he was in the country on a work visa.

Agents left the car he was in, a grey Hyundai Tucson, running — with a smashed window — at the scene on Pearl Street in downtown Portland after taking Carvajal-Munoz just after 9 a.m., according to video from bystanders and an interview with a nearby parking attendant. A passerby then drove the vehicle into the parking lot, the attendant said.

The detention happened as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is conducting what it is calling “Operation Catch of the Day,” an immigration enforcement effort across Maine, “targeting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens who have terrorized communities,” according to an ICE press release.

But Carvajal-Munoz has no criminal record, according to TLOxp, a background check system from TransUnion.

He is at least the third person detained in Maine whom news outlets have found does not have a criminal record. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment and has not publicized a complete list of people it has detained. The agency said on Tuesday it had arrested 50 people in Maine, but the “Worst of the Worst” list it published contained only 13 names as of 12 p.m. on Thursday.

“In America, we don’t believe in secret arrests or secret police,” said Gov. Janet Mills during a Thursday press conference on ICE enforcement in Maine.

Agents pulled Carvajal-Munoz over by the Top of the Old Port parking lot between Cumberland and Congress streets, according to Greg Seligman, the parking lot attendant working at the time. Seligman said he didn’t see the interaction but saw the aftermath: Agents had smashed a car window and left the car running, he said.

Seligman said someone who witnessed the incident asked him if they could move the car into the parking lot. The car was still there around 10 a.m., and there was still glass on the road from where Carvajal-Munoz had been pulled over.

Seligman said Portland police responded to 911 calls after the detention but told him there was nothing local police could do as it was a federal operation. The Portland Police Department confirmed it received a report of a disturbance at 8:48 a.m. and that officers responded to check out the area.

Amanda Barnett, Carvajal-Munoz’s coworker at GEI Consultants in Portland, said Carvajal-Munoz is in Maine legally on a work visa. He has worked at the company for two-and-a-half years, according to another colleague, Ali Brady, who said they started on the same day in June 2023.

“I’m really scared for him,” Barnett said.

GEI Consultants is an engineering and environmental consulting firm with 62 locations across the U.S. and Canada, according to its website. Reached by phone, a company representative confirmed Carvajal-Munoz worked there but declined to comment on the detention while the company was gathering information.

An observer posted a video online of agents in police vests leading Carvajal-Munoz with his hands behind his back to a dark-colored car with flashing lights above the windshield. A second video showed the agents’ car driving away, leaving the car Carvajal-Munoz had been driving in the street.

Barnett said she heard from Carvajal-Munoz’s girlfriend that she received an emergency alert from Carvajal-Munoz’s phone. The girlfriend asked Barnett if he had made it to work. When Barnett and Brady learned he hadn’t, and saw the videos of him online, they both went to Pearl Street.

Carvajal-Munoz received a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Maine in Orono in May 2023, the school confirmed Thursday.

Aaron Gallant, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UMaine, said Carvajal-Munoz was one of the hardest-working students he has had.

“I know that the entire department and faculty look very highly on Juan Sebastian,” Gallant told The Maine Monitor. “I’m shocked to hear this. I know his employers have been extremely happy with his performance as they’ve communicated to me regularly.”

Carvajal-Munoz has three years of experience in geotechnical engineering, geotechnical instrumentation, and construction observation, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“I have overseen and conducted geotechnical investigations for communities, cities, and agencies using a wide range of drilling, sampling, and in-situ testing methods,” he wrote on the platform. “My technical expertise includes shallow and deep foundation analysis, soil and rock slope stability analysis, and instrumented pile load testing.”

Deputy Editor Erin Rhoda contributed reporting.

Mural depicting workers painted on windows of the Madison-Kipp Corp. by Goodman Community Center students and Madison-Kipp employees with Dane Arts Mural Arts. (Photo by Erik Gunn /Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin job growth has been slowing over the last year, new data published Thursday suggests.

Total nonfarm jobs in Wisconsin rose by 9,000 in December compared with November, the Department of Workforce Development reported. When compared with December 2024, however, the increase amounted to 6,700 — suggesting a “cooling and holding pattern” in the state’s economy, said Scott Hodek, section chief in the department’s Office of Economic Advisors, during a media briefing Thursday.

“We’ve seen it cool a little, and that’s following national trends,” Hodek said. “There’s been a fair amount of volatility and uncertainty in the national economy, and of course that impacts Wisconsin as well.”

Earlier this month Groundwork Collaborative, a Washington D.C. progressive economic policy think tank, described the national December jobs report in grim terms.

“The December report caps a year of sluggish job growth, with the fewest number of jobs added outside of a recession since 2003,” Groundwork stated in a Jan. 9 press release. “Hiring slowed sharply over the course of 2025.”

The organization’s analysis put much of the blame on tariffs imposed by the administration of President Donald Trump and the accompanying uncertainty amid federal policy gyrations.

In Wisconsin, while jobs are in decline, three-month trends in separations and layoffs have “stayed pretty stable,” Hodek said Thursday.

“People are just essentially staying in jobs longer and you’re not seeing a lot of necessarily separations, but not necessarily a lot of hiring either,” Hodek said.

Job numbers have fallen in manufacturing and some parts of the service sector. There were 1,100 fewer manufacturing jobs reported in December than in November, and 3,800 fewer than in December 2024. Professional services jobs declined in December by 3,700 compared with November, and by 6,200 compared with December 2024.

Construction jobs increased by 3,100 in December compared with November 2025 and by 5,100 compared with December 2024. Leisure and hospitality gained 4,700 jobs in December compared with November and 10,900 jobs compared with December 2024. The number of health care jobs increased by 1,700 from November to December and by 10,900 from December 2024.

Jobs numbers in the monthly report are projections drawn from a federal survey of employer payrolls.

From a separate federal survey of households that asks whether people are working or actively seeking work, DWD has projected that 65,500 fewer Wisconsin residents were employed in December 2025 compared with December 2024. The state’s unemployment rate remained even with the previous month at 3.1%

The data aren’t granular enough to establish to what extent retirements account for the decrease in the number of employees, Hodek said. But he added that the “overall aging population,” the absence of a surge in unemployment insurance claims  and some other data “would back up this assertion that a fair number of those have to be retirees.”

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer announced the agreement on WisconsinEye during a joint press conference on Thursday. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) announced a tentative agreement on providing state funding to WisconsinEye, the nonprofit that provides livestream coverage of state government. 

It’s been a little over a month since WisconsinEye, which launched in 2007, halted its coverage of legislative hearings, floor sessions and other state government business due to financial difficulties. Since WisEye shut down, the state Capitol has held dozens of committee hearings without any being livestreamed and archived, and members of the public have been prohibited from recording or livestreaming. Only credentialed media has been allowed to record activity. 

Vos and Neubauer announced the agreement during a joint press conference on Thursday. According to Neubauer, the agreement will include an endowment, funded with the $10 million that lawmakers first set aside for WisconsinEye in 2023, as well as requirements that WisconsinEye fundraise to cover some operational costs. 

“The interest will go to WisconsinEye each year so that they can fund the majority of their Capitol operations,” Neubauer said. “This is a really good start. It’s very important for the public to have access, and so we’re optimistic that we’re going to reach a bipartisan solution here soon.” 

Vos said legislators also want to sign a short-term contract with WisconsinEye so the organization can broadcast the February floor period. 

“We’ll hopefully turn that into a longer term contract where we provide them limited funding,” Vos said. “I think it’s a win-win for all.”

As of Thursday, the Assembly will have met four times on the floor without livestreamed or  archived coverage of the sessions. The Senate has met once with a livestream facilitated by the Legislative Technology Services Bureau. 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has announced plans to livestream its upcoming oral arguments on the Wisconsin Court System’s website.

“The idea of having one network and one operation for the courts and another for the Legislature, another for the executive branch, certainly is going to cost more than any amount we would give WisconsinEye,” Vos said. “They’ve already done a pretty good job. We’re going to make sure that they’re financially stable, and hopefully they continue doing the work that they’ve already done.”

Vos said that under the tentative agreement, $10 million in state funds would go into a trust fund and the interest accrued from it would be given to a “revamped” board of directors. He said it would be “still transparent and private.”

The $10 million in state funds was initially set aside in the state budget for the organization to use to build a permanent endowment, but it came with a requirement that WisconsinEye raise equivalent matching funds. The organization hasn’t raised enough money to access the funds. In the weeks since shutting down, WisconsinEye launched a GoFundMe that has raised nearly $50,000 from more than 260 donations.

Neubauer said that the interest from the trust fund is not expected to cover the organization’s nearly $1 million annual budget, so there is an expectation that it would raise a few hundred thousand dollars each year.  

“They have said they are able to do [that] and are optimistic,” Neubauer said. 

Neubauer said there will also be a few other provisions related to additional transparency in the organization’s operations and reporting to the Legislature. 

The agreement would also need support from the state Senate. Vos said there was a good discussion on Thursday morning, that Assembly leaders “probably are more in sync” than their counterparts in the other house of the Legislature.

“I think they’re still working through some of the details of how they’d like to work, and that’s why we don’t have a finalized agreement,” Vos said. “We wanted to get the bill out there, start the idea. If they have a different concept, we’ll certainly go through to finalize it, but I think at least based on my discussions this morning, I feel like all four of us are in a similar place. I think our caucuses, we’d like to have some kind of access, it’s just what’s the best vehicle to do it.”

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) told reporters on Wednesday that his caucus believes “that giving the public access to see what we’re doing is important, but… just blindly giving money to an organization that’s asking us for money, but not giving us any answers, is certainly not the solution at this time.” Lawmakers had sent questions to WisconsinEye requesting information on its operations and didn’t receive answers until about 12 days after the deadline. 

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Bystander video shows U.S. Border Patrol agents kneeing a man several times in the face as others hold him down in Minneapolis on Jan. 9, 2026. Violence on behalf of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is on the rise. (Screenshot from video by Monica Bicking via Minnesota Reformer)

State leaders who want to curb the increasingly violent arrest tactics of immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis and elsewhere are struggling to push back.

They’ve promised civil rights legislation that could offer alleged victims another route to courts, ordered up official tribunals to gather video and other records, or asked cities to refuse requests to cooperate with raids. But for the most part, states looking for concrete ways to push back find themselves largely hamstrung.

Violence in immigration enforcement is on the rise. A federal immigration agent’s killing of Renee Good in Minnesota on Jan. 7 was one of half a dozen shootings since December. An immigrant’s death in a Texas detention facility this month was ruled a homicide. And detention deaths last year totaled at least 31, a two-decade peak and more than the previous four years combined.

There also have been dozens of cases in the past year of agents using dangerous and federally banned arrest maneuvers, such as chokeholds, that can stop breathing.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in masks and tactical vests have been recorded firing pepper spray into the faces of protesters, shattering car windows with little warning, punching and kneeing people pinned face down on the ground, using battering rams on front doors, and questioning people of color about their identities.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has defended many recorded incidents as legitimate uses of force against dangerous people. And some Republican state lawmakers have said they’ll work to bolster ICE’s work within their borders.

Some lawmakers, legal experts and immigrant advocates worry about whether a lack of oversight from the federal government and the weak positions of state governments could give rise to even more violence as President Donald Trump continues his push to arrest immigrants who are living illegally in the United States.

Previous administrations have prioritized arresting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally who also have criminal records, but that isn’t the case in Trump’s second term.

“You can’t go after a murderer and a garden-variety immigration violator like a poor nanny or a poor landscaper with equal emphasis. This administration has abandoned all discretion and all priorities, and you create this narrative that you’re doing this patriotic, godly thing,” said Muzaffar Chishti, an attorney and policy expert at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

Chishti said there has been a surge in abusive tactics that comes from a series of federal policies. He cited the massive infusion of inexperienced officers under heavy pressure to make arrests, the military-style tactics meant to create spectacle and fear, and the harsh rhetoric aimed, he said, at instilling warlike hostility toward immigrants and protesters.

More agents, more incidents

The number of ICE law enforcement agents doubled in less than a year, with Homeland Security announcing this month it has hired 12,000 new agents out of some 220,000 applicants. More agents have surged into cities such as Chicago and Minneapolis, their semiautomatic weapons, bulky vests and balaclavas often contrasting with local police officers wearing name badges and carrying sidearms.

Noem has insisted that ICE and other officers are the real victims of increased violence, citing instances like one on Jan. 14, when a man was shot in the leg by an ICE agent. She said in a news release that bystanders struck an officer with a snow shovel and broom handle in Minneapolis as the officer tried to catch a fleeing suspect. Noem called it “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement” in which, “ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life.”

Court papers released Jan. 20 included an officer’s account of only two assailants, the suspect and a friend who owned the car he had been driving, and said the injured suspect was trying to escape into the apartment building and that tear gas had been used to force the men to surrender.

Noem, who claimed Monday that more than 10,000 immigrants have been arrested in Minnesota, has described some people living in the U.S. illegally as “foreign invaders.” She characterized Good’s shooting as self-defense against “an act of domestic terrorism.”

And in a press briefing Tuesday, Trump told reporters that the people being deported “make our criminals look like babies. They make our Hells Angels look like the sweetest people on Earth.”

Such descriptions have become a tool that incites violence, Chishti said.

“When they say that they were doing God’s work with Renee Good, that she was a domestic terrorist, when you frame it that way from the highest leadership of the agency, you’re basically sending a signal that there’s no accountability,” he said.

Democrats push back

State leaders who say they’re worried about violence are trying different approaches, though they can’t completely curb federal policies.

New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said state resources would not be used to assist in immigration raids, citing the shooting of Good. But local agencies in New York could still use other funds to help with raids.

New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called for curbs on immigrant detention in the state, though two of three existing detention centers there could still continue to operate.

Colorado has launched a new system for claims of misconduct by federal agents, including ICE agents.

Some Republican-led states are taking the opposite tack, with Tennessee proposing legislation that would go beyond cooperation with federal immigration by setting up its own state immigration laws. If enacted, it would test the limits of a 2012 Supreme Court decision that struck down state-based immigration enforcement based on a similar Arizona law.

Tennessee is using White House guidance to draft the legislation, and other states are likely to follow. That would create new civil rights concerns if states pick up some of the same tactics as the federal government.

“That’s another way of unleashing the states, not only to work with the federal government, but also to acquiesce in the states’ enactment of their own immigration enforcement, detention, and removal regimes,” said Lucas Guttentag, a Stanford Law School professor who runs a project tracking federal immigration policy, speaking in a May interview published by Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law.

Combating the federal moves is already fraught, said Guttentag, who has served in immigration policy positions in the Obama and Biden administrations.

“No single political strategy can change it,” Guttentag told Stateline this week. “But litigation has proven both critical and effective in limiting some of the most egregious violations. The violence is a clear violation.”

It’s hard to police an administration that constantly pushes legal boundaries, Guttentag added.

“It’s like a ‘catch me if you can’ administration. They adopt tactics and basically challenge anyone to try to stop them.”

Two former federal prosecutors, Kristy Parker and Samantha Trepel, argued for state civil rights legislation and investigation in a Jan.14 op-ed published in The Guardian with the headline “Cities and states must hold ICE accountable for violence. The feds won’t.”

Accountability commissions — like one created by Illinois in October after ICE operations there — can help, they wrote, preserving evidence and gathering testimony in the face of federal obstruction, like the blocking of a state investigation into Good’s death in Minnesota.

Potential civil rights legislation

Another method mentioned by the former prosecutors: State civil rights legislation could theoretically give people harmed by federal agents a hearing in state court under a legal concept called “converse-1983.”

New York’s Gov. Hochul has proposed such legislation. A similar Wisconsin measure died in July when the Republican majority on the Assembly judiciary committee would not give it a hearing, said Democratic Rep. Andrew Hysell, the bill’s sponsor.

“It’s a positive approach to preserving our rights here in Wisconsin, our constitutional rights, because you can no longer count on the federal government to do that,” Hysell said. “In the situations we’ve seen in Minnesota, the federal government is crossing the line into what appears to be violations of constitutional rights.”

However, the idea of “converse-1983” has yet to be used successfully to sue a federal agent, and might never succeed, said John Preis, a law professor at the University of Richmond.

“I would be shocked if converse-1983 [lawsuits] went anywhere,” Preis said. “States may not enact laws that impede federal officers who were doing their jobs. A converse-1983 action would seem to do this.”

However, in some cases, such as the shooting death of Renee Good, victims may be able to successfully sue the federal government without such a state law, Preis said. The process is difficult but the lawsuit could succeed if a constitutional civil rights violation can be proven, he said. Attorneys for Good’s family announced Jan. 14 that they were considering a lawsuit.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

President Donald Trump speaks at the Justice Department March 14, 2025, in Washington, DC.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump promised Thursday his newly established “Board of Peace” will not “be a waste of time,” just after the leaders of several countries signed its charter at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. 

Trump, who has been vocal about his hopes to one day win the Nobel Peace Prize, said he expects the board to work in concert with the decades-old United Nations, though he didn’t detail how, since many of the countries belong to both international organizations. 

“Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want to do, and we’ll do it in conjunction with the United Nations,” he said. “You know, I’ve always said the United Nations has got tremendous potential, has not used it. But there’s tremendous potential in the United Nations.”

The board includes Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan, according to a list shared by the White House. 

The Trump administration earlier this month stopped processing visas for residents from several of those countries, writing in a social media post that those “migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates.” Countries on the list include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Jordan, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. 

Belgium declines

The White House originally included Belgium on the list of Board of Peace members, but Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prévot wrote in a social media post the country’s leaders have “NOT signed the Charter of the Board of Peace. This announcement is incorrect.”

“We wish for a common and coordinated European response,” Prévot wrote. “As many European countries, we have reservations to the proposal.”

Trump has been highly critical of European allies and repeatedly criticized NATO during his second term, especially as he’s ramped up pressure to acquire Greenland. 

Trump said during his speech, while members of the Board of Peace sat nearby in chairs, that he believes it “has the chance to be one of the most consequential bodies ever created.”

“Together, we are in a position to have an incredible chance — I don’t even call it a chance. I think it’s going to happen — to end decades of suffering, stop generations of hatred and bloodshed, and forge a beautiful, everlasting and glorious peace for that region and for the whole region of the world because I’m calling the world a region,” Trump said. “The world is a region. We’re going to have peace in the world. And boy, would that be a great legacy for all of us. Everybody in this room is a star, or you wouldn’t be here.”

The Democratic gubernatorial field prepares to take the stage Wednesday. Left to Right: Joel Brennan, Kelda Roys, Francesca Hong, Sara Rodriguez, Missy Huges, Mandela Barnes and David Crowley. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

In a music hall just east of Milwaukee’s trendy Walker’s Point neighborhood Wednesday evening, seven Democratic hopefuls in the 2026 race for governor fielded questions from an assortment of small business owners before a friendly crowd of more than 300 people.

Their answers showed only occasional differences on matters of policy. The greater contrasts were in style, tone, vocabulary and presentation.

Answering an audience member’s question about how each of the hopefuls would address Wisconsin’s teacher shortage, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez drew attention to a new state program to create teacher apprenticeships — enabling working teaching assistants “to get a bachelor’s degree while they are teaching assistants with full-time wages, full-time benefits. They will graduate with no debt.”

It was modeled after a similar apprenticeship program to produce more nurses, noted Rodriguez, a nurse who entered politics in mid-career.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said prospective teachers should be encouraged, but added that working teachers also need support after years of being demoralized by disrespect and inadequate funding from the Republican-led Legislature.

“We have to create a much better pipeline, making sure that we’re supporting those who are currently in the profession and utilizing them to be the trusted messengers to help recruit more young people into the field,” he said.

“Put a stake in Act 10, and repeal it, and ensure that it never happens again,” said state Rep. Francesca Hong — referring to the 2011 law that stripped most public employees of most union rights and that has been blamed for contributing to teacher shortages in Wisconsin. “Fully fund public education. Reimburse special education at 90% from the state, in parity with voucher schools,” she said, adding, end the voucher program “so we no longer siphon away resources from our public schools to private schools.”

State Sen. Kelda Roys, former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes, former Department of Administration Secretary Joel Brennan and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes also took part in the Wednesday night forum.

With Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ decision this past July not to run for a third term, the 2026 governor’s race is the first in Wisconsin without an incumbent since 2010. It has drawn a broad field of potential successors in Evers’ own party.

Cletus Hasslinger, 78, of Milwaukee, attended a similar forum back in 2018, when Evers was one of 10 candidates seeking the Democratic nod to run for governor. He turned out for the Wednesday night event and was impressed.

“This is a much stronger group!” Hasslinger said. “It energizes me.”

Sponsored by small business advocates

The forum was held at The Cooperage, a venue in the shadow of Milwaukee’s iconic Hoan Bridge, and was organized by Main Street Action, the political arm of Main Street Alliance. MSA is a small-business organizing group with an agenda centered on economic fairness, contrasting many of its interests with those of large corporations.

The group has embraced the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid expansion and state and federal support for child care and paid leave for workers, among other policies. MSA also campaigns for tax policies that would require big business to pay more and stronger government action against corporate concentration.

“We elevate the testimony, the stories of small business owners,” said Richard Trent, MSA’s national executive director, who counts MSA’s national membership at 30,000 people and said Wisconsin is one of the organization’s hubs.

“So much of how we think about our economy, how we think about what’s best for our cities, our towns — that whole narrative is shaped by the largest corporations, the wealthiest Americans,” Trent told the Wisconsin Examiner. “It’s the small business owners who are driving most of the productivity in our economy, yet get almost none of the say in the policies that actually strengthen their communities.”

The eighth Democrat seeking the nomination, former state Rep. Brett Hulsey, was not invited to join Wednesday night’s forum, which qualified participants if they were polling at better than 0% or if they had raised at least $100,000 in donations.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann are seeking the GOP nomination. Trent said there aren’t plans for a Republican forum before that party’s primary, also in August, but that MSA intends to bring the winners of both nomination contests together for a forum in the fall.

Questions draw out similar stances

Moderated by Dan Shafer, who publishes “The Recombobulation Area” political analysis and opinion column on Substack and who holds the title of political editor at Civic Media, the forum ran about 20 minutes over its original allotment of 90 minutes.

Shafer brought a half-dozen business owners and Main Street Alliance members to the stage, each posing a question to the gubernatorial hopefuls, then finished the session with a handful of questions submitted by audience members.

Many of the answers didn’t diverge wildly. Expanding BadgerCare to cover more people had broad support. So did the idea of a BadgerCare “public option,” enabling people to pay into the Medicaid-funded health plan if their incomes were not low enough to qualify them for the program.

Roys suggested another variation, allowing Wisconsin residents to buy into the health plan that is available to state employees.

Support for child care funding from the state was also widely endorsed, as was a paid leave program funded through a payroll deduction.

Rodriguez observed that a paid family leave program was in “the last budget that the governor and I put out” (it was cut by the Joint Finance Committee’s GOP majority). Crowley said after he took office as Milwaukee County executive, his administration created a paid family leave policy for county employees to help recruit workers.

Hong pointed to legislation she introduced in the Assembly in the previous session that would have created “one of the most comprehensive paid leave” programs. And Roys cited a paid leave bill she co-authored in 2011, during her previous time in the Legislature.

“Making this universal is going to help small businesses start,” Roys said. “It’s going to help them attract and retain employees and compete with the big businesses who can afford to offer more generous policies.”

Core themes and personal biographies

All seven participants largely stuck to the core themes they’ve sketched out in their campaigns and the biographical details that they hope will persuade primary voters in August why they’re the best choice to carry the party’s standard in November.

Rodriguez highlighted her current role as lieutenant governor — visiting “all 72 counties every year” since assuming that office. She led a health care workforce task force that Evers appointed in 2024.

Crowley emphasized ways in which, as a county executive, he has to deal with issues at the local level that the forum was putting on the agenda for the next governor: housing, health care costs, family leave policies and preparing for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers to descend on Milwaukee.

Hong stressed her experiences as a restaurateur and as a single mom, and her stark assessment that “as a worker and as an employer, the system is rigged against us where people value corporate power and greed more than anything else.”

Roys presented herself as a fierce challenger to the Republicans controlling the White House and Congress: “We need a governor with a spine of steel who will stand up to this Republican regime in all the ways that they are hurting Wisconsin, and especially our small businesses and our family farmers,” she said.

But Roys also declared herself to be experienced in the operations of state government, having had a state Assembly seat previously during the administration of Gov. Jim Doyle and the beginning of Gov. Scott Walker’s first term. And she cast herself as a visionary who sees “a window of opportunity to make real change” in Wisconsin in the coming years.

Hughes said that in her time at WEDC, “I have worked with small businesses all across the state, with Main Street businesses working to understand the challenges that they face,” including day-to-day operations, finding workers and supporting employees who need child care or other resources.

She called attention to an economic plan she released this week with provisions for education, labor-management partnerships and expanding affordable housing.

Brennan described himself as an experienced problem-solver and relationship builder, and a voice for calm in a time of turmoil.

“We live in times that are unlike any other. And we are angry. We’re angry at Donald Trump for what he has done to really do away with some of the values that we hold dear as Americans and as citizens,” Brennan said. “But when some people get angry, they want to get even. When I get angry, I want to roll up my sleeves and get something done.”

Pandemic relief roles

Hughes and Barnes both emphasized roles in Wisconsin’s Main Street Bounceback program, which provided $10,000 grants for businesses to upgrade their operations, including taking over vacant storefronts, in downtowns across the state. Barnes was lieutenant governor in Evers’ first term, forgoing reelection in 2022 in order to run for Senate against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, a race he lost by about 26,000 votes.

Barnes’ executive branch duties included helping to promote “our Main Street Bounceback program, which helped so many small businesses across the entire state that had been dealt a bad hand,” Barnes said. “We stepped up, we filled the gap, and we met a need. That’s exactly what I intend to do as governor.”

Hughes brought up the program when Chloe Longmire, a Milwaukee entrepreneur, asked the candidates how they would work with economic development agencies to help women-owned and minority-owned small businesses.

“Coming out of the pandemic, I saw across the state Main Streets where businesses had survived and businesses had not survived, and there were vacant spaces,” Hughes said. Main Street Bounceback was designed to enable businesses to occupy vacant spaces easily, with a one-page application and the support of a community member.

“And we trusted those business owners to invest that money in the ways that needed to happen,” Hughes said, with 9,500 businesses in each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties getting aid. “We saw Main Streets at 100% capacity — full, looking for more businesses, looking for more opportunities to move businesses into vacant spaces.”

Brennan, as secretary of the Department of Administration, tracked how the state’s $4.5 billion in pandemic relief was spent. A program focused on movie theaters made a particular impression, he said, with one memorable venue in central Wisconsin that passed through three generations to the granddaughter of the first owner.

“And the $30,000 that they were getting from the COVID relief money was going to pay for utilities, going to pay for their mortgage — it was going to be the light at the end of the tunnel,” Brennan said. “That’s the kind of thing you need to do in a crisis, but it’s also the way you need to be responsive when you’re operating day-to-day, and that’s what we’ll do in a brand new administration.”

After reiterating his involvement in Main Street Bounceback, Barnes pivoted to the original question’s emphasis on businesses owned by women and minorities.

“We should have to incorporate targeted investments in communities,” he said. From there he pivoted again, to a proposal he announced earlier Wednesday for the state to invest in grants for startup grocery stories in food deserts.

“People aren’t able to afford groceries, and we’re going to connect our family farms . . . to bring local food into communities because we can’t have a food desert in a state that produces as much food as we do in Wisconsin,” Barnes said.

A range of answers on taxing the rich

Questions about Wisconsin taxes drew a wider variety of responses.

Roys dismissed the manufacturing and agriculture tax credit, available primarily to larger businesses, as “a giveaway to the wealthiest individuals and corporations in the state” that fails to help economic development.

“We need to restore our progressive taxation system where the amount of money that you pay in to support the public services that all of us enjoy and all of us rely on is based on the money that you earn,” she said. “Right now, working people, the middle class are shouldering a disproportionate burden for paying those services.”

Hong was equally dismissive. “Our small businesses are paying a higher tax rate than some of the wealthiest corporations,” she said. “So, get rid of it. No major corporations should be paying no income tax.”

Crowley said tax credits should focus on small and mid-size companies. “Millionaires and billionaires, let’s face it, they don’t deserve a tax credit,” he said, adding that he would favor a blue ribbon commission to examine state taxes and spending comprehensively.

Rodriguez called for measurable job gains in return for the credit. “If we are going to get tax benefits, we need to tie it to actually increasing the number of people that they are hiring,” she said.

Hughes said that when she was at WEDC and met with business leaders looking to relocate to Wisconsin, they were much less interested in taxes than issues such as the strength of local schools and the university system and the availability of workers.

She demurred on a question about raising taxes on the wealthiest to provide services for people in need and suggested that a sustainable economy is more important.

“My focus is going to be on growing the economy, because my fear is that if we simply increase taxes on the wealthy, the next team will get elected and come back in and take that away,” Hughes said.

“It could mean that we increase taxes on the most wealthy, but in addition to that, we need to be thinking about creating a system that works election after election and administration after administration,” she said. “Growing the economy and making sure that everyone is paying their fair share is the foundation of my candidacy.”

The last question of the night looked to the unease that has been gripping the country after federal immigration agents descended on Minneapolis earlier this month and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Good as she sat at the wheel of her van near her home.

How would each of the Democratic hopefuls navigate “maintaining law and order and avoid being positioned by the right as being soft on crime, while ensuring the state citizens won’t be infringed upon by federal government overreach?” Shafer asked, reading from a written submission.

Rodriguez cited her recent statement calling on lawmakers to apply the same rules for ICE as for local law enforcement: ready identification, body cameras and no masks for agents, and forbidding them from going into “sensitive areas” such as schools without a judicial warrant.

“It is personal to me,” said Rodriguez, whose husband is a U.S. citizen born in Mexico.

Crowley said Milwaukee County is currently discussing how it will respond to an ICE influx. “Standing up for people’s constitutional rights, whether a citizen or not, is not soft on crime at all, he said. “We have to make sure that we continue to protect everybody and make sure that we are a safe community.”

Hong said she’s been in touch with mutual aid groups in Minneapolis, and that “ICE is a rogue agency…. Abolishing ICE is a meaningful policy.” Roys vowed to bring the weight of criminal as well as civil liability down on ICE and act against people who “break our laws and brutalize our people.”

Hughes said at meetings in Eau Claire, community leaders told her they are looking to members of the immigrant community “and understanding what they needed and what they were looking for.” Brennan urged learning from the civil rights work of Martin Luther King Jr., “locked in arms with his fellow man and with the people in his community.”

Barnes said he has spoken with people in Minneapolis, and said the next governor must be unafraid of retribution from the White House. “We need change and somebody who’s going to stand up and be strong in this moment,” he said.

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